 When it comes to container gardening, the most important consideration is making sure that it has great drainage. But how many times have you been told to add bulky material to the bottom of it to help with that? Well, you know what? That's all wrong. And today I'm going to show you why that doesn't work, but I'm also going to give you the simplest way to create the best drainage possible. Now if we've heard it once, we've heard it a thousand times. If we want to improve the drainage in our container, we need to add something to the bottom, whether it's small stones or marbles or styrofoam peanuts or maybe even crushed aluminum cans. We need to create that air space at the bottom of the container so the water moves through more easily. Now the real life application does that really work? And rarely do we have a chance to see what goes on inside that container because usually it's something solid like this. But today we're going to take a look at that and we're going to use clear containers. So I have two. They both have holes in the bottom. And then the first one, we're going to add some stone. That's typically what we would do. I'll add more than you might likely usually do to really illustrate the point. That may be the normal stopping point, but just for today, we'll go up to right about there. And then I'll add some soil to the top. A bit more there. Now in this one, we'll go straight soil. Nothing at the bottom for drainage. Okay. So these are two simulated pots that we're about to plan. Now the first thing we need to do is put the water in there because that's what we want to do. We want to see the results of what happens to the water. So here we go. So fill that one and we'll fill this one. Maybe a little bit more in both. So now we'll let the water drain through for a few minutes and then we want to see the results of where that water goes. So it's been just a couple minutes and let's assess the results so far. Now the one where we added the stone to improve the drainage. Take a look at this. Now we have some air pockets here, but for the most part, this is saturated soil. The water hasn't moved through to the stones. And in this case, where we didn't add anything, all soil, look. The saturation point is way down here at the bottom. Now that's typical. The water will move through to that point where the drainage or the exit point occurs. In this case, it's all the way at the bottom of the container. Here, it's at the bottom of the first substrate level. Now the academic explanation for that is that water does not pass easily between two substrates of different pore sizes. In this case, the water is going to collect in that area that's denser, the soil. Now the real life or practical application of this, when we plant into an area where we've added things for the drainage, we're going to sit in an area where the soil is more saturated. And we don't want that because our plants can drown. Whereas in this case, where we added nothing, there's more area where the roots aren't sitting in saturated soil. That's what we want. More air space. That makes for a healthier plant. So the next time you want a healthier plant and improve the drainage, you don't need to do anything at all. Just straight soil.